A police informer is found murdered in a small school pursuing a radical and independent approach to education just south of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Suspicion falls on the school's Protestant Matron and on Manley, an ex-priest who runs the school with her. Benny, a 17 year old delinquent who has found refuge at the school, is also implicated. In order to survive in the battle between contending 'armies', Benny has to break out of the isolation with which he tries to protect himself. His violent rite-of-passage exposes the deceptions which surround him and force him to take a stance. It asks the paradoxical question "On which side are you neutral?".
"It is a division about identity and democracy, about private emotions and public survival. High Boot Benny is an allegory on a conflict which has produced more deception than truth."
(Joe Comerford)
Winner of the Prize of Discovery, Aubagne Film Festival, 1994 and the Best Young European Actor Prize for Marc O'Shea, Beziers Film Festival, 1994.